God, I’m boring on, Grace, I’m sorry. But this whole situation has been truly bonkers for me, and I’m not the sort to let it all out to a therapist. Best to crack on, I always think. And I’ve got very little to complain about really. A nice family, a good job, financial stability. Ah yes – I should get to that. Simon gave me the money. It took some wrangling, which was surprisingly good-natured. My initial figure was rejected out of hand, but we eventually settled on a nice six-figure sum to tide Mum over until I was in a more senior position to shoulder the burden. It came on the proviso of a DNA test, which I understood, but still silently seethed about. I felt like Lottie’s honour was being called into question. But there’s little honour with businessmen like Simon, is there? We both know that.
In the six weeks it took to negotiate the settlement, I met with Simon a few times. Often at his office, but once in a while at a private members’ club off Berkeley Square. On one occasion, we went to a match together, eschewing his private box for the stands – I suspect he didn’t want to introduce me to his friends, which I understood. How do you introduce your secret son to a bunch of property tycoons who would love to tap that kind of vulnerability while eating food from a buffet you’ve paid for? QPR won 2–1 and our relationship stepped up a gear. It didn’t take a genius to see that Simon enjoyed having a son. I might not have been a son he raised, or even a son he knew very well, but he got a kick out of it anyway. He bantered with me, mocked my blazer, offered to introduce me to his City mates. Sometimes he’d arrange to meet me under the pretence of going over the terms of our little arrangement, only never to mention it when we were face to face, preferring to buy me a drink, tell me about his latest deal, challenge me to a game of cards.
There was a swagger to our dear old dad. Not exactly charm, but a teeth-baring grin, a confidence that overwhelmed others, a feeling that things could go well for you but only if he wanted them to. His handshake conveyed a serious strength, but it felt a little contrived – like he’d read a manual on how to show dominance with physical contact. He knew the names of doormen, valets, the cleaner in his office, and more than once I saw him press money into their palms with a sort of aggressive gallantry. And still everyone who passed him looked faintly scared of the man. It felt pretty good to be the one in his company, truth be told. Respect, that’s what it felt like to me. People nodded at me as though I must be someone too, if I was part of Simon Artemis’s inner circle.
But when I wasn’t being dazzled by the power he exuded in the flesh, I would remember that he wasn’t wholly respected in the way he’d have liked to imagine he was. People in the City took a dim view of his bully boy tactics – it looked pretty grim when the Evening Standard did another splash on him double parking his latest supercar outside a hospital entrance so he could go get a massage, or berating a waiter for failing to clear plates at the speed he felt it warranted. A table was turned over on that occasion, if I remember correctly. The worst of his behaviour was his propensity to take a piss off the top of his office building, no matter which unfortunate might happen to be walking the pavement below. Luckily the press never picked up on that delightful titbit. Simon would call journalists who wrote such pieces, haranguing them for writing ‘bollocks’， and dismissing the stories as jealousy. Once, after he held a fiftieth birthday for his wife at the Colosseum （he actually hired out the bloody Colosseum, Grace）， a tabloid ran a story sniffing at the reported ￡500,000 price tag, and he sent the journalist a first-class ticket to Rome with a note which read ‘Sorry you’ll have to queue with the rest of the great unwashed fuckers. Bet you’d have liked to see it at dusk with a glass of champagne in hand like we did.’ I wonder if she took him up on the offer?
He wanted to be part of the establishment, but he couldn’t quite conceal his provenance. I once looked down at his hands as he was talking and noticed that his nails were buffed shiny, almost as if he’d had a manicure. I suppose he might well have. I’m no metrosexual, but I know there are chaps who go in for that. But it’s never going to sit exactly right with the old guard, is it? But then he’d have known that and he still retained those gaudy edges. It was like he understood he’d never quite fit and so he doubled down. He’d drive up to a charity dinner in a car so flashy it would make people actually grimace, but then he’d spend more money than anyone else at the after-dinner auction, knowing that that way, high society would be forced to talk to him. To thank him. To engrave his name on a gallery wall.